Layout 2 - University of Central Lancashire

Industry partnerships
equal opportunities for all
It has become even more essential that students and recent graduates have access, not only to
high-quality employability and careers guidance, but opportunities for invaluable work-experience.
UCLan has been at the forefront of offering workexperience
opportunities for its students and
graduates for many years, ensuring that the
placement, internship or project benefits both the
organisation and the student, and where possible
results in employment.
By teaming up with a number of industry players
UCLan has been able to provide opportunities for
students, academics and businesses to work
together and help drive innovation within industry
sectors forward. A successful collaboration with
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is
just one example of where three UCLan Games
Development graduates were presented with a
unique opportunity to work with the stereoscopic
3D group at SCEE.
UCLan is one of the few UK universities to
incorporate 3D technology into its games
development programmes and the partnership
with the industry experts at Playstation® 3D gave
Dan Hill, Tom Russell and Stuart Brown, real
experience of stereoscopic 3D rendering in a
commercial setting; a technique they had all used
in their final year projects.
All of the graduates’ work used stereoscopic
techniques to enhance the realism of graphics
within a game. One project focused on 3D
environments with complex lighting effects,
another used component based entities, allowing
the ‘world’ inside a game to be as realistic as
possible such as a fire spreading in a similar way to
real life. The important subject of optimisation was
also tackled: researching ways to make 3D
stereoscopic games run faster.
Simon Benson, Senior Development Manager at
SCEE, commented: “The UCLan staff are keen to
move with new innovations and have taken on
board a vision of 3D gaming. They are providing
their students with industry informed skills that are
very much needed in the future of gaming.”
Stuart Brown, who graduated with a first-class
degree in Games Development added; “Being
able to work with a company like Sony Computer
Entertainment Europe and draw upon their
expertise has been really beneficial to me. I’ve had
a real insight to what it’s like working in the
games development industry.”
The partnership with global IT company Cisco,
which has invested in the provision of specialist
equipment and expertise to enhance the industrial
networking environment, has also opened up
opportunities for student internships. Specialist
industry internships are highly competitive, yet
extremely advantageous.
Second year student Philip Whiteside fought off
tough competition from around the UK to secure
a place on one of Cisco’s prestigious 12-month
internship programmes. The UCLan student is set
to gain crucial experience with Enhanced Customer
Aligned Testing Services (ECATS) in Reading. It will
provide him with the opportunity to partner with
customer-specific testing experts within Cisco
Services, and gain hands-on access to the latest
technologies. Philip will also work within the team
to solve complex network issues that impact Cisco’s
top five percent of customers. As there is only one
ECATS laboratory within Europe, the Middle East
and Africa, the internship represents an excellent
opportunity to work in a customer-focused and
progressive company. Services are broken down into
capabilities enabling Philip to work with customers
from all over the world.
Sedef Buyukataman, Global Intern Program
Manager at Cisco, commented: “We’re very pleased
Philip will be joining us. In the UK we bring in
between two to five interns each year, many of
whom are offered full-time positions upon
successful completion of their internship in ECATS,
Advanced Services or Technical Sales.”
It isn’t just the large global organisations that UCLan
works with; internships within smaller organisations
can be just as beneficial, again to both the business
and the student. Liz Russell, company founder and
MD of the multi award-winning Preston-based
company Envirosystems added: “I’ve been very
impressed by the skills our graduates have brought
to the team. They have fresh ideas and haven’t been
afraid to suggest business improvements.”
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